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Is fast food as a business doing well or is fast food dying out, how about vs the chipotle model.

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FrancisK

FrancisK

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Chipotle is gross, don't really care about that end of it or which is better health and taste wise, just care about the business side of it.

I would sincerely appreciate some unbiased discussion and opinions on this topic. Do you guys think fast food will continue to do well or the chipotle model of a slightly higher tier of fast food is the way to go?

I don't want to poison the discussion with bias, I'll elaborate further as to why I'm asking later on.

Would love to hear what you think gentlemen it is much appreciated! I trust the business acumen and judgement of the men here over most any group.
 
There is a severe lack of education about the detrimentalness of fast food. The 'restaurants' are full of fatties eating fatty food. The power of their marketing and all the other trickery they use won't be changing any time soon as far as I see it.

It's fine by me, kill. Yourselves if you like. I don't eat that.
 
I live on the West Coast and like how In-and-Out Burger has a really simple menu. Cheeseburger/hamburger, fries and a shake/drink. There's a chain in Seattle called Dick's that does the same thing. Simple and not way overpriced. This is how McDonald's used to be and they should go back to doing this. Now there's too much nonsense on the menu and it's too expensive. I'm not paying $10-15 for poorer quality food when I can cook a pound of ground beef or even steak for much cheaper.

I like how Chipotle used to be, but now the portions are a lot smaller and the service is usually terrible. Not worth what you're paying.
 
There was a big wave of premium quick service restaurants, like Chipotle or Five Guys or Panda Express.

However, I think these chains are all struggling to meet sales goals and expansion goals. It's the same with the whole class of restaurant chains like Chili's, Applebee's, TGIF, Red Lobster, etc. The restaurant business is facing a big die off.

On the one hand, people prefer one-of-a-kind or small local chain places, so big chains are hurting. The mom and pop places are often no healthier than the chains, but the food tends to be fresher, and more unique.

On the other hand, eating out is way more expensive than it was a few years ago. It used to be that eating out could be competitive with buying groceries, especially if you might otherwise get a lot of prepared foods from the grocery store. Now I think people are doing what it takes to buy less expensive groceries to make it affordable to eat.
 
Fast food used to be fast and cheap. Now it's not so fast and not so cheap. I see some of the chains are starting to push for cheaper, value options on their menus.

Some of the chains I've stopped going to altogether. I used to eat Chipotle everyday, used to get it for free, now I won't set foot in there because the price is so outrageous.
 
The only fast food I'll eat is breakfast egg sandwiches from McDonalds or Dunkin' because they are relatively healthier and cheaper than every other option.

I like subway but with a bag a chips and a tip their sandwiches cost as much as a lunch special at an upscale sit down restaurant.
 
I suspect a lot of places are being kept in business because of boomers. Places like Ruby Tuesday, Applebees, Red Lobster and others of similar like. I tend to think younger generations demand better quality food because they grew up with the food channel and big celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay. Fast food should decline, but will it? People are addicted and I still see long lines around lunch and dinner time. I know for myself I stopped eating fast food during the pandemic and have continued to hardly go for it. I notice whenever I do I end up feeling extremely tired and have some kind of gut issue.

I wouldn't mind seeing fast food and bad restaurants die out, but with them will go a lot of good places that already survived the pandemic squeeze. Home cooking is going to make a big comeback.
 
In-N'-Out and Chik-fil-A are good for awhile. Mainly because they are owned and operated by Christians and the price point to quality and service ratios are very good. Very rarely do these two chains mess up your order, the kids working there are always pleasant and professional, and they almost never forget to give you a straw, napkins, and the condiments you requested.

I think everybody else is in trouble mainly because of the shrinking will to work for anything less than 100K a year being demonstrated by entitled, "want something for nothing" zoomers who are barely participating in the traditional work force (instead, many of them are daydreaming of becoming famous millionaire content creators, bitcoin miners, and/or rappers). Everytime I go through the most common fast food drive-throughs I look inside at the biweekly (and bisexual) rotating "talent," and I think to myself, "How long can this operation go on like this?"

I employee several zoomers weekly for subcontract work and they are very difficult to work with mainly because they are unenthusiastic atheists who can't handle social adversity. In addition, they have trouble completing tasks and showing up to work on time. One of my future business plans involves the food industry and I am designing it in a way where the model does not rely on zoomer employees. Most zoomers cannot be trusted to put their best foot forward and to do a job to the best of their ability for a measly $20 an hour.
 
The customer service at Chick-fil-a is excellent. I have respect for McDonalds employees because they juggle orders for drive thru, eat in, and delivery at the busiest times of day. They never messed up any of my door dash orders. The worst customer service is at Dunkin'. Even when there aren't bratty zoomers working older employees still manage to misplace orders and get distracted. Usually it's the women.
 
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JCSteel said:
The customer service at Chick-fil-a is excellent. I have respect for McDonalds employees because they juggle orders for drive thru, eat in, and delivery at the busiest times of day. They never messed up any of my door dash orders. The worst customer service is at Dunkin'. Even when there aren't bratty zoomers working older employees still manage to misplace orders and get distracted. Usually it's the women.
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I find that Chick-fil-a and McDonald drivethroughs are usually packed, whereas all the other fast food places like BK, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Arby's, Subway, etc., are usually pretty slow.

In the past all fast food restaurants would have a decent amount of dining in, but now I think over 80% of business is drive through or to-go. I haven't looked this up to see what the published numbers are, but that's what it looks like to me. Maybe 90%.

So, McDonalds and Chick-fil-a: Killing it!

All the rest: Store closings incoming.

Edit: I wonder how Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Papa John's are doing. I think most of their business is in the evenings. I bet they are all down too in overall number of pizzas, and I bet their margin per pizza is down as well. You're better off making your own, or buying a premium frozen pizza.
 
Alright boys I appreciate all the input, your words and insights are always incredibly valuable and I hope to pay all of them back someday somehow!


I'm down a business at the moment, had a catastrophic event and lost my business but in the end it will be okay insurance will make me whole after all the dust has settled and I go through the hell they want to put me though. (insurance is such a terrible nasty jew scam)

I'm back at my first business day to day kinda twiddling my thumbs because I had set this business up to run itself when I left to take on the other business. So I'm on the hunt for the next business opportunity.

There is a chipotle style franchise that has a location in my area and everyone I know who eats there loves it and says they will never eat at qdoba or chipotle again. I would normally never involve myself in food or franchises for that matter but this is a bit different as I actually believe in the product and it's like 5 ingredients, so it's not like a walk in cooler full of 200 different ingredients disaster franchise restaurant. Also being a small newer franchise their royalties and costs are still very low. My cousin who was my manager at my business was also on board because he knows the place and loves it also so we did all the leg work and we're visiting their corporate headquarters in a couple weeks.

Well my uncle who is a super businessman, he is also my godfather and an incredibly good man always looking to help everyone in the family, he caught wind of this that I was interested in food and also a free agent at the moment and of course he had to try and help. He was already offered a proposal to purchase all the franchises of a well known fried chicken fast food restaurant in the area, he doesn't have an aversion to franchises like I do he only cares about the numbers and has done well with them in past. It's a couple dozen restaurants they are all well mismanaged in the hood as most fried chicken franchises are, fix them up and turn them over he's done it before with other franchises. The numbers apparently look good, I'll find out how good tomorrow but I trust my uncles business acumen completely.


So yea I'm in a spot where I can take on this massive business opportunity but I don't care for the product and the company or I can go into the unknown with a risky opportunity where I believe in the company and the product.

I'm not anywhere near making a decision I don't have a fraction of all the info yet but I will soon, would love to do both but I highly doubt that is feasible opportunity cost wise.
 
Fast food is very much fad driven. Very few places end up with consistently good numbers over a long period of time (companies like McDonald’s or Chick Fila are exceptions).

If you decide to get into this business I would consider cashing out and selling your franchise outlets after 3 - 5 years if things are going well and you can sell for a nice profit.
 
FrancisK said:
Alright boys I appreciate all the input, your words and insights are always incredibly valuable and I hope to pay all of them back someday somehow!


I'm down a business at the moment, had a catastrophic event and lost my business but in the end it will be okay insurance will make me whole after all the dust has settled and I go through the hell they want to put me though. (insurance is such a terrible nasty jew scam)

I'm back at my first business day to day kinda twiddling my thumbs because I had set this business up to run itself when I left to take on the other business. So I'm on the hunt for the next business opportunity.

There is a chipotle style franchise that has a location in my area and everyone I know who eats there loves it and says they will never eat at qdoba or chipotle again. I would normally never involve myself in food or franchises for that matter but this is a bit different as I actually believe in the product and it's like 5 ingredients, so it's not like a walk in cooler full of 200 different ingredients disaster franchise restaurant. Also being a small newer franchise their royalties and costs are still very low. My cousin who was my manager at my business was also on board because he knows the place and loves it also so we did all the leg work and we're visiting their corporate headquarters in a couple weeks.

Well my uncle who is a super businessman, he is also my godfather and an incredibly good man always looking to help everyone in the family, he caught wind of this that I was interested in food and also a free agent at the moment and of course he had to try and help. He was already offered a proposal to purchase all the franchises of a well known fried chicken fast food restaurant in the area, he doesn't have an aversion to franchises like I do he only cares about the numbers and has done well with them in past. It's a couple dozen restaurants they are all well mismanaged in the hood as most fried chicken franchises are, fix them up and turn them over he's done it before with other franchises. The numbers apparently look good, I'll find out how good tomorrow but I trust my uncles business acumen completely.


So yea I'm in a spot where I can take on this massive business opportunity but I don't care for the product and the company or I can go into the unknown with a risky opportunity where I believe in the company and the product.

I'm not anywhere near making a decision I don't have a fraction of all the info yet but I will soon, would love to do both but I highly doubt that is feasible opportunity cost wise.
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Sorry to hear about your business. Hope it works out with the insurance.
 
TruckDriver9 said:
Can You use quality produce and make a profit at the same time ?
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Franchises like this have guidelines and normally contracts with specific food service companies. You can indeed choose what level of quality you want from that provider for the chipotle style one because they are a smaller company and use a local level food service provider but not for the chicken joint they are a large franchise and they would be strict about consistency. I have some light experience with food businesses, given the choice I would absolutely take a smaller profit margin to put out a better product. Dollar amounts are great but I want something I'm proud of, call me an idealist but it does matter to me and I do think long run it is better for business.

Mind you in a meeting with my uncle today he threw a complete monkey wrench into the whole thing with a third option he has been considering, more on that next week when I have more info.
 
SkiPro said:
Sorry to hear about your business. Hope it works out with the insurance.
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Thank you sincerely brother, if it weren't for some crazy circumstances it would have been a blessing in disguise as it was a good time to exit the business anyway. But it will all be sorted in the end, just have to deal with the insurance trying to jew us every single way they possible can but their tricks won't work although they will absolutely try anyway.
 
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